The Difference Between Heaven and Hell
by strawberrypockywolf
Summary: Peter Pettigrew had never been a religious person and James Potter had never particularly been a forgiving one.


Summary: Peter Pettigrew had never been a religious person and James Potter had never particularly been a forgiving one.

Disclaimer: If I owned Harry Potter do you think I would be a sixteen year old girl without a car, job, or money?

A/N: Reviews would be most appreciated.

The Difference Between Heaven and Hell

Peter Pettigrew had never been a religious person. Most wizards and witches weren't, considering that magic was often seen as the devil's work by muggles and organized religion in general. But Peter had never really given a thought to what would happen to him after his death. He had always been too busy trying to ensure that he would survive for one more day to think about what happened after he finally slipped up.

Almost every day he regretted his choices. He lived each and every day with the constant knowledge that he was the cause of one of his best friend's death and the cause of another friend's imprisonment in a place that was, literally, hell on earth. He knew that because of him a young boy, the son of his best friend, had suffered through misery for seventeen years. But he also knew that there was nothing he could do to change the past, and that he had to continue on his path if he wanted to live.

When the great storm, the great war between the Order of the Phoenix and the Death Eaters, finally came to Hogwarts Peter found himself with a choice. Time seemed to slow as the green light shot towards the Boy-Who-Lived, and in that slow passage of time something inside of Peter snapped. The green light hit a target, but not the one that it had been aimed for. The person lying dead on the ground was not Harry Potter but Peter Pettigrew. In a final act of bravery and self-sacrifice, which was the reason he had been sorted into Gryffindor, he had taken the curse meant for Harry Potter and had given his best friend's son a chance to live.

But that was not the end of Peter. As Dumbledore had told Harry so many years before "to the well-organized mind death was just the next great adventure". And while Peter's mind was not at all well-organized and he was petrified of death he did find that there was something beyond the great darkness he had imagined. When he became conscious again he found himself looking at neither the fiery depths of hell nor the pearly white gates of heaven but a great plain of nothing. Fear ran through Peter. This is why he had always feared death, why he had betrayed his friends in order to live and grow more powerful. He had wanted to put off the nothingness for as long as possible.

Then something happened. Four figures appeared out of the nothingness, and while at first they were simply gray they slowly took on color. And then Peter recognized them, and fear flooded through him along with overwhelming guilt. He sank to his knees and stared at the four people he had so cruelly betrayed.

James Potter, the great leader of the Marauders himself, approached Peter slowly, and his warm hazel eyes were colder than Peter had ever seen them. To his right was Lily, who was just as beautiful as ever, and whose green eyes reflected the same emotions that Peter had seen in her son's—anger, betrayal, and something akin to hatred. Sirius was on his left, but this Sirius was a younger Sirius, the Sirius that Peter had condemned to Azkaban rather than the one who had broken out to come after him. But his eyes were the same. And the last person, to Peter's surprise, was the final Marauder. It was funny but Peter hadn't even realized that Remus had died.

"Get up, you sniveling coward." Shaking Peter rose to his feet and looked into the eyes of his former best friend.

"Am I in hell?"

"No." Peter was surprised. There was no way that he could be in heaven and he didn't know where else he could be.

"You are in the afterlife. But in your case it might as well be hell." Part of Peter had always hoped that he would meet James again someday and be forgiven, but that was the part of him that had forgotten who James was. James Potter was not a forgiving person, not when it came to betrayal and not when it came to his family or friends.

"J-James. I'm so sorry. P-Please—"

"I thought I knew who you were Pettigrew. I thought that you were my friend. I thought that you were a Marauder. I thought that you were one of us. But you were just a rat, just a coward. You sold us out Peter, all of us." Peter was surprised to find that there was hurt in James's eyes. He was astounded to find that after seventeen years James was still hurt by his betrayal, and that hurt him as well. "Why did you do it Peter?"

"I-I was scared. I didn't want to d-die. I l-loved you but I d-didn't want to die." James stared down at him and shook his head.

"Then you never loved us. Because we would have died for you." Then he turned away and Peter felt his heart wrench. He collapsed to his knees again and sat there, empty and broken as his friends, as the people who had been his family for seven years as a child, turned away from him. James looked back over his shoulder.

"Do you want to know the difference between heaven and hell, Peter?" Peter couldn't look at the person he had killed. "The difference is your choices. So welcome to hell." They were gone and Peter wished for once in his life that he could die. But that was the price he paid for trying elude death. He would spend his afterlife wishing for James to forgive him. But he never would, because James Potter was not a forgiving person. And Peter Pettigrew was not worthy of forgiveness.


End file.
